Behind the Spud

In the past week we have been really focusing our efforts on both the look of the game’s logo and the who, what, why, where, and when of the game’s protagonist. We have iterated and reiterated the main character and are coming closer to having her finalized! In addition, we have also been working on the protagonist’s partner in crime and right-hand!

So, without further ado, meet the protagonist of Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space:

CASSIE

Cassiopeia, or Cassie for short, is an astro-shuttle mechanic from the Solarnum Galaxy. She is a poor, hard working potato that lives in her grandfather’s mobile astro-shuttle chop shop. Her grandfather, the last living member of her family, was incarcerated by the Federation for refusing to pay their ridiculous taxes on his chop shop. After escaping from the Federation, Cassie is doing everything in her power to rescue her grandfather from their evil clutches!

Ian Fun, our scriptwriter, had come up with a super detailed bio of Cassie before the artists started sketching out concept art. He spent hours on refining all the little details of her past, her motivations, her catchphrase, how she dresses, and her likes and dislikes. As such, we first started off drawing a bunch of different variations on how Cassie might look.

Everyone in the office took a vote on which ones we liked best, what worked, what didn’t work, and what accessories we wanted to give her. From there we picked a single design and worked with some colours!

Besides tinkering with colour schemes, we also tried messing around with different goggle shapes and outfit types.

All of that ultimately led to the (almost) finalized look for Cassie! Of course, some minor details may change, but so far we are pretty happy with how she looks!

After working on Cassie and all her little details, we started to work on her right hand maiden and partner in crime:

FAY

Fay is Cassie’s adopted sister and first mate on their grandfather’s mobile astro-shuttle chop shop. Unlike Cassie, she is an astro-shuttle scientist and is the voice of reason of the dynamic duo. When Fay was younger, her famed scientist parents mysteriously vanished, and Cassie’s grandfather found little Fay all by herself. He decided there and then to adopt her and bring her back to his chop shop, where Cassie and her grew up together.

We never really planned on having a “side-kick” sort of character, but when Ian was looking at all the concept art that Julian (lead artist) and Koko (concept artist) drew up for Cassie, it inspired him to write about Fay. For Ian, Cassie’s look was such a stark contrast to how he visualized her that he wanted Fay to become a character to show how they could complement one another.

Similarly to Cassie’s case, Ian wrote a detailed description of Fay before the artists started to churn out some concept sketches for the character. We played around with colour schemes, hairstyles, outfits, and accessories.

After all the iterations of Fay, we finally found one that everyone in the office voted for and liked the most! With that being said, there may still be small features that we will adjust or add to Fay. But as of now, here are Cassie and Fay, the most bad ass intergalactic spuds to ever make their way into the Holy Potatoes! universe!

The Holy Potatoes! subreddit is a little lacking right now, but we are hoping with the developer diaries and the sequel coming along that we can continue to grow the community over there and get some discussions going!